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North American built them to a different design philosophy than is prevalent with modern fighters. In the early 1950's speed was everything and the Super Sabre was definitely fast for its day.
Almost literally day with the pace of aviation development.
The F-100 was an extension of the same design philosophies that started with the P-51D, through the F-86 Sabre. Faster-higher.
All three of those planes don't do well below a threshold speed and have a lot of trouble getting airspeed back once it's bled off. Typical of their days, really. Typical of American pursuit and fighter philosophy where boom and zoom was preferred over turn and burn.
The Super Sabre's threshold is about 335 knots indicated airspeed. Get below that number and the J-57 is essentially a device for turning JP-4 into noise and a pretty orange flame. Around 400 kias though she's agile and responsive, the engine also maintains and returns energy.
So what you want to do against a slower opponent, especially a straight winged one, is to make passes at them firing on the way by. The ranging radar is pretty good about locking on and the gunsight settles down in time to shoot with about 200 knots closure. Snap off a burst then turn around for another pass. Speed is life!
In the 1956 Suez campaign, the only thing the Egyptians have that can hope to hang with you on speed even for a bit is their MiG-15bis. And it can't hang for long. Their Meteors and Vampires turn very small circles and are quite happy at 250 kias, don't fight them there! You cannot pull enough g at 250 knots to stay on their tail and if you try they will get around behind you and ruin your whole day.
Ironically enough, this is also how you fight a Tomcat against a Hornet.
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